Best-laid plan, bar the laid part
by Hetep-Heres
Summary: Season 1 or 2: Eager to socially move upwards, Thomas has made up a wonderful plan: charm one of his employer's youngest daughters, marry her and become Lord Grantham's son-in-law. What a social climbing! But there's still a few things in the way. Like his total lack of attraction and desire for women, for instance. One-shot. Written for January 2014's "Downton monthly prompt".


_Yes, Thomas, you can do that! Come on, take heart!_

He had his hands on her waist, was looking straight into her eyes… Courage!

Her head was raised, tilted back, and she was gazing upwards at him… gazing _expectantly_ at him…

He could do that.

And he did. He bent his head, lowered his lips aiming at hers… and finally touched them with his, closing both the distance and his eyes.

Yes, better not look, better not see anything. Things would be easier with his eyes shut. That way, he could deceive himself. Nearly as much as he was deceiving her.

Strange… Those lips felt like… lips. Not different. Thomas had expected something more repelling, something stranger, something more foreign that what he was currently feeling under his own. Those felt like normal lips. Well, normal to him, that is. Lips. Nothing more, nothing less than lips.

Women's lips weren't really different, after all.

Alright. His eyes were shut, their lips were touching, it was now time to open his a bit, and trace hers with the tip of his tongue. Unless she seemed shy about it, or quite hesitant?

But no. And he honestly didn't know if he should have felt relieved or not about the fact that she was apparently responding his kiss, or at least expectant for it to draw out and even to deepen.

But _he_ was suddenly rather reluctant to do that. He conjured up to his mind the image of some young and handsome Adonis, like this Fairbanks fellow whose pictures he'd seen in a maid's magazine.

Yes, well, here he was, stroking her lips with his tongue, pretending he was enjoying it, pretending he was both eager yet slightly hesitant, while in truth he was just motivated yet a bit reluctant. But fortunately _she_ was eager for two, so it somehow turned out okay, on average.

She even clasped her hands behind his neck, so he wrapped his arms around her, in a sign of response and fake affection. So here he was, holding her close to him, licking her mouth and tongue, deluding himself into thinking he was kissing a guy and not a girl, a bloke and not a woman.

Though while they were embraced, enfolded in each other's arms, he suddenly felt… something. Something unusual. Something unusual that made reality crash into his little bubble of fantasy and burst it.

Yes. Here, right under his chest, there was something unusual crushed between them, against his ribcage. Something… flabby, soft and floppy. Like some small cushion.

Ewww, yuck! _Bosom!_

Tits. Boobs. _Gross! Ewww…_

He faltered a bit in the kiss as reality sank in, but she now had taken the lead so they didn't break apart.

_Concentrate,_ he told himself, _get a grip on yourself, gather your wits and concentrate, for God's sake!_

Yes, he could do that. The key was not to think about the fact that it was a _woman_ he was currently kissing. Just a regular guy. Well, would be better if it were a _handsome_ regular guy. Nice face. Perfect skin. Fine features. Slender but firmly build body. Nice hair, maybe a fringe...

And absolutely NO boobs. None at all. _A very flat chest_ he thought, trying to ignore this cushion-like feeling against his own.

Hmm, yes, that was better… He resumed kissing her, or more precisely, he resumed being an active participant in that kiss.

Nevertheless, he couldn't quite fathom how men were supposed to like bosom, to appreciate these pounds of flabby-floppy flesh with no ounce of muscle. How was he supposed to want to touch those, to fondle those, or even only to look at those, while they were disgracing the sheer beauty of a pure, perfect, and beautifully toned torso? That was beyond his ken.

Meanwhile, she had been running her hands in his hair – he'd better think about combing it again before going back to work or coming across anyone… That wouldn't do running into His Lordship with one's hair tousled, and by no ones else's hand but his own daughter's… and looking that dishevelled and slovenly in front of one's possible future father-in-law would certainly do nothing to polish his image of perfect potential son-in-law.

Well, that hair stroking thing wasn't totally unpleasant. Her hands were soft and caressing, with just this hint of rough scratching from her nails and slight tugging to tease him. Hmm, not bad. Maybe he could get used to her, eventually.

She tightened her embrace, hugging him even closer and overtly licking his tongue with hers. Eww, felt weird, though… He finally wasn't that sure he could that easily get used to her. But he would have to, to pull the wool over her eyes, over everyone's eyes, in the end…

But now was about secret, about hiding from all the others. And from her sister, of course. Now was about _her_, about convincing her, about enticing her. About catching her in his net. About luring her to the centre of it. About making her think she was falling in love with him. _And couldn't imagine her future without him._

About making her believe he was falling in love with her, too. And have her believe _he_ couldn't imagine his future without _her_ at the centre of it.

And according to the way she was clinging to him, it was beginning to work. Yeah, his efforts were now starting to pay off. _Well deserved_, he thought, his mind again on the very disturbing amount of protruding flesh crushed against his chest.

And suddenly, without him realising how it had happened, he was in bed – no, _they_ were in bed – and _naked_ at that! How came that…? And the idea of her seeing him in this state of nakedness – in the buff, so to speak! – wasn't making him feel very comfortable. Fortunately, she seemed to be sleeping. But the idea that _he_ might see _her_ naked too didn't do anything to ease his mind, quite the contrary. He paid particular attention not to look in the direction of her chest because of, well, _obvious_… he knew he would be in for a very upsetting sight, there…

_Bosom_. He squeezed his eyes shut not to see it. To prepare himself not to look disgusted if ever he were to catch a glimpse of it, in case she wasn't really asleep.

And why on earth were they now in bed? And why in _his_ small bed in the servant's quarters? The instant right before, they were kissing in the backyards, hidden between a wall and piles of crates, and very, fully, and properly clothed. So why was he now partly crushed under her naked skin, her naked breast – he could feel it, yuck! – resting on his naked upper-arm?

That made an awful lot of naked parts of each of them, and of touching parts of both of them. But how far wouldn't he go to lift his social status up the ladder? And which better way than through either marriage, or at least money?

But still, he slowly shifted his arm so that it wouldn't touch her. But then, it made _it_ move too. _It_, her _breast_. And he saw it move, tremble a bit, not unlike jelly he suddenly thought. Moving as if it had a life of itself, while she was still sleeping.

But no, he must have moved too fast, because she was now stirring in his bed, waking up, and soon she was rising above him on her elbows, and – horror! – her bosom was hovering over him, five or six inches from his eyes!

This flaccid, foreign flesh was hanging right before his sight, so he just shut his eyelids tight to try and block this view, erase it from his memory, from his mind, but no: even with his eyes shut he saw them; tits, bosom, breasts, boobs, whatever the name was they were there: one, two, five, twelve boobs making fun of him, mocking him, moving on their own in front of him, towards him, trembling and shaking on their own…

_Aaaaaaarghh!_

He sat up straight in his bed, in the dark of the night, panting, sweating in his pyjamas… _Pyjamas!_ He wasn't naked, then! And, more importantly, he was alone in his bed. _Alone!_ What a relief.

All this waltz of mocking boobs was, after all, nothing else but a nightmare. Phew!

Still, it was a very disturbing one. And he couldn't quite either make out or remember which of the two sisters he was with in his dream… Lady Edith or Lady Sybil? Bah, all in all, any one of the two would do to fulfil his plan. Though he may find it more difficult to fully act his part with them: what if he saw these dancing bosoms in his mind as soon as he approaches them from now on? That may prove to be a complication.

His mind knew most men got aroused and had pleasure from the thought, sight and feel of all these fleshy protrusions and seeping orifices, but he still had some difficulties to fathom this idea.

Granted, his plan was a great one if it worked, and everything seemed so smooth on paper: he'd charm one of the Earl's daughters and convince her they were meant to be together, and then would marry her, sure that her parents loved her too much to really disown her, to fall out with her, to refuse to finally come around her choice of a husband. And then he'd belong to the upstairs' world, and be Lord Grantham's son-in-law.

Yeah, that was a good plan, and Thomas was patient enough not to push things and ruin everything, he knew he was. And if he really put his heart in it, he could charm a chair. In fact, the only slight problem was that he wasn't into women. At all. A very _slight_ detail, wasn't it?

But yes, after all, some things promised to be harder than he first thought they would be…


End file.
